


Post It

by Severina



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Community: tv-universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-22
Updated: 2014-02-22
Packaged: 2018-01-13 09:35:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1221367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Getting a crush on someone in the middle of the apocalypse is about the stupidest thing he's ever done.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Post It

**Author's Note:**

> Pre-Series. Written for LJ's tv_universe community for the prompt "meet cute". (With inspiration from Persnickett's supplementary prompt, "post it note".)
> 
> * * *

The new guys have already been in the camp a full day when Glenn returns from his supply run.

He eyes them surreptitiously as he goes through the results of his foraging with Lori, only half-listening as she exclaims happily over the tins of pudding and jokes about the heartburn everyone will get from the ground chili powder. It doesn't take long for the older one to start setting off alarm bells in his head, and he's uncomfortably reminded of schoolyard bullies, of change thrown in his face by bigoted customers. He shifts uncomfortably, tries to remind himself that things are different now. People have to work together. They have no other choice. 

And the younger one seems… different. Quieter, less apt to mouth off. And… okay… really sort of hot. In a redneck, beer swilling, country music listening, regularly gets into bar fights kind of way. 

Those arms alone.

Glenn shakes his head. Those arms – and the impressive shoulders, and the piercing blue eyes – are the last things he should be thinking about. Because in his considered experience, a body like that is never attached to anything good, at least not when you add redneck into the mix. 

He makes a decision right then to avoid the new guys altogether.

* * *

He hears about them, though. Watches them. Sees the way Daryl's shoulders hunch when Merle bellows, the way he turns his head away so no one can see him wince when Merle casually drops a racial slur into a conversation. And he starts to think that maybe it wasn't fair of him to keep his distance. Sure, Daryl's got a few anger management issues, but with a brother like Merle, who wouldn't? And it's not Daryl's fault that Merle is an asshole.

Except that once he's started not-talking, it's just too awkward to start. Glenn knows this, because he lies in his tent at night and quietly practices what he would say to Daryl, imagines the other man all sweaty and intense and sexy, and then he cringes and buries his head in his pillow and calls himself ten kinds of idiot. 

Getting a crush on someone in the middle of the apocalypse is about the stupidest thing he's ever done. Getting a crush on someone who's very likely an extremely hetero potentially homophobic redneck just puts the whole thing up into the gold medal winning category in the Stupid Olympics.

He flings himself onto his back and thinks he'd be better off to just hole up in a monastery for the rest of his life. And he's actually reaching for Dale's crumpled old map to check out his options when he spots the post-it notes.

At the time he didn't even know why he picked them up on that last run, except that they were brightly coloured in a world that seems progressively more grey every day. Now he gets an idea, digs around in his backback for a pen, and goes through seven variations of a note before he settles on one that he's at least partway satisfied with. 

_Daryl_ , he writes. _I'm Glenn, and I'm going on a supply run tomorrow. Is there anything I can get for you?_

He squints in the moonlight, quickly adds a _Sorry I haven't said hello sooner_ and a sloppy happy face to the end before he can change his mind. Then he sneaks outside and leaves the note where he's sure that Daryl will find it.

He can't sleep for the rest of the evening.

* * *

Glenn tries not to be too disappointed when the first note gets no response. Or the second, even though he helpfully added a _chocolate or snacks_ suggestion. Or the third, which he had to practically risk life and limb to leave, sneaking into Daryl's tent to tuck it into the pocket of the vest pooled at the end of the man's cot while Merle snoozed in what Glenn assumes was a pharmaceutically enhanced stupor less than ten feet away. He's also getting tired of going on supply runs every three days, and trying to come up with reasonable explanations when Shane and Lori ask why he doesn't just bring a bigger backpack or take someone with him. He even has to agree to a larger foraging expedition in the future, accompanied by other people, just to get them off his back.

He's on his way to the quarry, head down, lost in thought about how all those other people are going to slow him down, when the hand reaches out of the bushes to snag at his arm.

Glenn stumbles, reaches for the knife that he's taken to carrying at his belt. His hand is swatted away before he can even touch the hilt, and Glenn scrambles backward, open his mouth to yell for help.

"You speak English?"

Glenn swallows, blinks when Daryl steps out of the tree line. The mouth that was open to scream still hangs open, but now it's in shock instead of fear.

"You been leavin' me these?" Daryl barks out. Glenn blinks again, tries to still his racing heart as he glances down to see the neon post-its crumbled in Daryl's fist. "You know how to talk, or you some kind of feeb?"

Glenn swallows. "I… yes. I can—"

"Then stop leavin' me this shit!" Daryl says. Daryl flings the notes to the ground, and Glenn watches as the bright papers float lazily down to land in the dirt. "You got somethin' to say to me? Use your damn words!"

Now that he knows that he's not about to be eaten alive by carnivorous corpses, Glenn finds he's able to breathe again. He raises his head and lets out a shaking breath, removes his hat to shove his hand through his sweaty hair. "I would," he says. Glances past Daryl to the path, but it doesn't look like anyone is going to arrive to save him from his conversation. And it suddenly seems a lot hotter out than in did just a few minutes ago. "But—"

"But what?" Daryl interrupts.

"But I'm not very good at lying, all right? Like I have the worst poker face in the world. So then I lie to you and you know it's a lie and it becomes this big—"

"Then tell the damn truth! Jesus, what is it with you people?"

Glenn frowns, unsure if Daryl means the people in the camp in general – who, granted, have been not been all that great at expressing themselves, Merle excluded – or Asians in particular. But he flashes quickly on the way Daryl grimaced when Merle launched into a story the other day about 'camel jockeys' and decides to give the man the benefit of the doubt.

"Look," he says, trying to stay calm even though his heart is beating double time and this is absolutely the last way he thought he'd be having this conversation. Daryl was never this confrontational in any of the variations that he practiced in his tent at night, for one thing. And he always sort of pictured moonlight, not the sun beating down on the top of his head, the sweat trickling down his spine and making him even more nervous. "I like you, okay?" he starts. "I mean I don't know you very well but I think I could like you. Well, I already _like_ you—"

"The hell you babblin' about?" 

"I think you're hot and I kind of have a crush on you," Glenn says quickly. He gives up and looks away, squinches his eyes shut. "Okay, so if you're pissed off and you wanna punch me just punch me in the gut or something. Because you could probably break my nose and there's no doctors to set it and I could get an infection and die."

He holds his breath, waits for the inevitable. But when he finally opens his eyes thirty seconds later, all he sees are the wings on Daryl's vest as he disappears around a bend in the path.

* * *

Glenn avoids the camp for the rest of the day. He fills half a dozen jugs with water, loads them into Ed's car for delivery. He checks the rabbit snares. He even joins the women and helps with the laundry.

And every once in a while, he tucks his hand in the pocket of his jeans and smoothes the crumpled up post-its that he'd gathered from the ground. 

By the time he gets back to the camp he's missed dinner, missed the jawing around the fire afterward. His limbs feel weighted down and his eyes gritty, and he tells himself it's just because he had a busy day; that it has nothing to do with stupid confrontations and stupid hope and getting stupid crushes on straight boys that he should have grown out of by now. 

He flops onto his bunk, frowns when he hears the crinkle of paper near his ear. 

The note is tucked halfway under his pillow, written on the back of a faded electricity bill. Glenn actually holds his breath before unfolding it, moves to the opening of his tent to tilt it toward the moonlight.

_Rail lube for bow_ is scrawled in pencil at the top of the sheet. And below it, barely legible: _Ain't gonna hit ya. Too cute._

Glenn sits back against his cot, grins inanely and clutches the note in one fist. 

Maybe hope isn't so stupid after all.


End file.
